Network planning and design is a complex process which is constantly changing based on changing needs of the organizations implementing the networks as well as technical evolution of hardware and software within the networks.
The topological design is frequently a manual process of studying needs and resources, and conducting short-, medium-, and long-term planning, information technology sourcing, and operations and maintenance. Network synthesis and network realization follow topological design. At various stages, manually generated diagrams or models may be produced to capture design plans and provide opportunities for analysis.
However, manual preparation may lead to errors in consistency and accuracy. Further, it may be difficult to capture protocols or properties of different network planes or systems, and a challenge to maintain up-to-date information on ever-evolving resources. Inspection of the design is also challenging, resulting in a likelihood that extensive testing will be required before the network design is made available to its users.